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Benevolent Asylum: just for fun in collaboration with WARTPerformance Space WALK
28 Nov & 3 Dec 2011
This project has been supported by the Australia Council

Photos: Alex Wisser & Richard Manner

In an excursion of Lavender Bay, Sydney, Lily Hibberd and WART made an allegorical tour of around seven sites around Luna Park. This WALK revealed how joy and sacrifice eclipse histories of madness and exile and underpin the contemporary workings of Australian institutions of confinement.

At this event, Mieke Bal and Michelle Williams Gamaker's new feature film "A Long History of Madness" was presented in association with the WALK performances, hosted by Artspace, Sydney. This was followed by an informal discussion and drinks, with artists Lily Hibberd and WART, alongside film critic Adrian Martin.

This night aimed to engage people with direct experience of institutional confinement, and those working or associated with arts, academic, and community and state mental health and corrections organisations. Over the evening, we intend to examine the history and interpretation of Australia's former and ongoing major institutions of confinement and how notions of madness might influence practices and representations of punitive confinement today.